Classism in America - <AUTHOR> http://siderea.livejournal.com/1260265.html?format=light <comment><USER2> Because of where I grew up (rural South and Appalachia), my native accent is something that I've learned to mask in all professional settings. It doesn't matter how immaculate my grammar is: in the profession of software engineering, southern accent = ignorant bigot who can't be trusted. People's biases, conscious or otherwise, are noticeable.

The irony is that I practice "code switching", so basically my coworkers have no idea where I'm from until they ask me. They'll overhear me on the phone talking to my family, and notice that I speak in an entirely different manner. It's not a conscious thing on my part, but I sometimes feel very awkward about it. At times, I'm very upset by the fact that someone who grows up in a particular part of the country gets to speak in their native dialect at work without judgement, all because of stereotypes about intelligence and education, which essentially tie directly to the author's point about class.

<comment><USER3> It's remarkable to me how folks who would never, ever be seen to say anything rude about other races (or who would only do so very obliquely) will quite loudly smirk about how much they hate Southerners, how stupid they think Southerners are &c.

It's all just class. One can be just as intelligent with a Southern accent as one can be stupid with another.

<comment><USER4> Exactly. As a southerner, I have an accent, but I also don't answer important questions fast. IOW, I pause a beat to collect my thoughts. People tend to think this too is a sign of "stupid". Really, it's just I don't like to be wrong. I'd rather be slow up front and be right, than fast up front and be wrong. However, our development culture tends to think everything needs to happen as fast as possible (the whole twitter in a weekend meme).

<comment><USER5> >IOW, I pause a beat to collect my thoughts. People tend to think this too is a sign of "stupid". Really, it's just I don't like to be wrong. I'd rather be slow up front and be right, than fast up front and be wrong.

I'm really glad to hear that I'm not alone with this struggle. Still don't have a good answer for it though. :(

<comment><USER6> Just give it a bit longer... :-P

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Being from Europe, I was also weirded out that almost all discussions of class in the US was about money. To me, the separation of economic class and social class is clearer than to the average American.

But, the same rules of "invisibility" apply where I'm from. Whenever I've talked to my upper-middle class friends about what social class they belong to, they are _completely_ clueless. They don't know they belong to it, they don't know others don't, and they completely subscribe to the "we're all just regular middle class" mentality. The friends I have from other classes, or who have also made class journeys, are _much_ more in tune, they have no problems seeing class and classism.

One thing that was very illuminating to me in this article was the notion of class as culture, and class as _performance_.

> It is a common misconception that the primary obstacle to being in a much > higher class is money to afford the things by which one performs that class. > The limiting factor is not money, it is this: it is impossible to join a > culture the ways of which you know nothing. You may come by money, but the > ignorance of how to use it to perform that higher class will keep you out as > adamantly as if there were a wall built around it.

Holy crap. Yes. A thousand times yes.

<comment><USER8> > Being from Europe, I was also weirded out that almost all discussions of > class in the US was about money.

The subtle differences between the USA and Europe on this subject are quite interesting. Another one is that in the USA, being branded as 'upper class' is pejorative and instantly implies you are rich, spoiled and not likely to be a hard worker, if you work at all.

<comment><USER7> > being branded as 'upper class' is pejorative

That's also fascinating, because in the US, _wanting_ to be rich is seen as a very positive thing. Everyone is supposed to be living the American Dream and improving their lives, but reaching the end goal is a bad state? Hilarious.

And where I'm from, wanting to be rich is seen as an ugly thing, the only socially acceptable ways to _be_ rich is to win the lottery or be a sports champion. Then it's perfectly fine, but should you actually _earn_ your money then that's automatically suspect and you're labelled a Bad Person.

I have friends who are in the IT industry, making good money, and who are genuinely _ashamed_ of how much money they make.

<comment><USER9> > and who are genuinely ashamed of how much money they make.

Are you sure that isn't an act? People pretend socially acceptable emotions all the time.

If they donated the excess to the IRS (the IRS accepts donations!), I'd be a bit less skeptical.

<comment><USER10> > Are you sure that isn't an act?

It isn't. I'm from a economically below-average country in Europe, have lived in a couple others and I've settled down in the north. Almost none of my friends (particularly back home but here too) know how much I make because it's genuinely embarrassing. It's something of a "why do I make so much more when I'm no better than anyone else here?" feeling.

Also I know it's not just me, I see it around me from other people in both countries; the only people I've ever talked about it with was with other friends I know earn similarly to due to similar circumstances at the time.

edit: now that I think about it, while talking about earning a lot is generally shameful, discussing buying expensive things doesn't elicit the same feeling, despite being effectively the same.

<comment><USER11> Interesting! Thanks, this clarifies something for me - my wife is mortified because I freely discuss my income with anyone who asks, and it's way higher than the average. She considers it "bragging" and, as you say, embarrassing. I always thought I was showing friends / relatives / acquaintances that getting a lot more money is possible with not much effort - I work from home and don't have a degree.

Anyway - it's interesting to think of this mentality as part of "European culture".

<comment><USER10> Yes that's it: it always feels like bragging.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Social class is astonishingly multidimensional as pointed out in the works of C. Wright Mills (Power Elite), Paul Fussel (Class), Tom Wolfe (The Pump House Gang), etc.

In my extended family there are no college professors, but a lot of cops, even a lot of women that are cops. (There are some accountants, but they are forensic accountants ;-)

When I get stopped by the cops I don't worry, they like my attitude, they will tell me that people don't like speeding in their residential neighborhood and to them I look more like a guy who doesn't like speeding in my residential neighborhood and not the kind of guy who likes to play _Initial D_ in residential neighborhoods.

Sometimes I've been a bystander when it looked like the cops showed up to arrest the first black person they saw, or when 15 police vehicles show up to arrest some black guy as thin as a rail and I even have a friend who grew up in a much richer family than me who had a bad attitude towards the police and has had his ass kicked, etc. Somehow though, even though I am not a cop and I don't particularly see things the way cops do, I've somehow absorbed enough protective coloration that I have a lot of "privilege" in this area, and less in some other areas.

<comment><USER13> > Paul Fussel (Class)

> family there are no college professors,

Fussel's Class was sort of OK, but then he went on a wish-fulfillment tripe dump, whereupon he wished college professors like himself to be above it all.

Hardy har har, sure, sure ...

<comment><USER12> Class is probably Fussel's hardest book to rip up. Look at _Muscle_ , the book he ghost wrote for his son to find out what he really thinks.

To be fair when a graduate student I knew had an absentee PhD supervisor and a nervous breakdown and tried the "experiment" of not showing up for work and seeing how long it took for the paychecks to stop, the "experiment" strung on for most of a year until his dad realized he had no idea how to get in touch with his son, called up the department, and they called me up.

He had managed department failing department stores for decades and he thought our college town was a "dump" because it didn't have a Nordstrom's.

The social position of the college professor has changed a lot since Fussel's generation. Up until 1970 or so it was a path of upward social mobility, but a slowdown of tenure track hiring, social changes that doubled the number of professor's kids that could be recruited (counterbalanced enough by massive imports of male graduate students from hyperpatriarchical cultures to not threaten feminoid narriatives) mean it is no longer a path to social mobility, unless you mean trading a life of baking cookies at an organic cafe 9-5 to working 80 hours a week at 5 different colleges spread out over 200 miles while eating off food stamps...

</comment></comment></comment><comment> rm_-rf_slash Geography plays a huge role in determining social classes and the perceptions of them. It also influences spending habits.[1]

In New York, for example, it has been shown that people across the income spectrum there will pay more than the national average for shoes and watches. New York is very wealthy and urban, so you are always walking and being seen in your shoes (and checking the time) and it confers a sense of class. The more people think about the quality of their footwear, the more they will be concerned with keeping up appearances. Even poor New Yorkers spend a higher part of their income on shoes than most poor Americans.

Contrast this with, say, San Francisco. The shaggy-looking dude in jeans and a Hard Rock Cafe t-shirt could be a multimillionaire, you'd never know. But it is more likely than not that the given individual is physically fit. It's always bikini season in California, whereas New York's long and snowy winters allow for big meals and bigger coats. The more fit people you encounter, the more you will be concerned with your and other's fitness, because it is more readily on your mind. ("It's warm and sunny all year round and you don't even jog or bike? Get off your ass."). Consequently, the Bay Area sees a disproportionate amount of income spent on health clubs.

[1] The New York Times had an excellent Op-Ed from a few years back, called: "What People Buy Where" [http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/12/14/opinion/sunday/what- peo...](http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/12/14/opinion/sunday/what-people-buy- where.html?referer=&_r=0)

<comment><USER14> Well, in San Francisco it's actually _never_ bikini season, but otherwise this makes sense.

<comment> rm_-rf_slash San Francisco doesn't have bikini season, it has bikini hours: 10:30AM to 4PM. The other time is reserved for hoodies.

<comment><USER15> I like the way you think

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> There has always been, and always will be, class in a society of people. Even among "progressive" societies like coastal North American cities, classism exists. It may be seperating people based on what level of educational attainment you have, or even how politically correct you act around peers (the more the better...?), but it will exist no matter what.

Status was once (and perhaps still is) a useful metric for the level of contribution someone offered a community - doctors, lawyers and others like them get status because status is what a community could use in lieu of payment as a means of expressing gratitude for the useful service the person provides. We attribute status to athletes, musicians, companies and others for the same reason - they give us something we want.

In order to feel like one belongs you must have acceptance from your community, be it a street gang or a country club. One of the most critical dimensions of the character of a person is how you treat someone that you do not have to treat well.

So we should use our progressive monocultural aspirations for good (treat people fairly and as they want to be treated) instead of just talking about how much you want to save the world while you reject people who have a lesser degree than you.

</comment><comment><USER17> I live in South America and classes here are, similar to Europe, not really tied to your money.

It's really funny: I grew up in a slum, but software now gives me as much money as politicians and senior executives of public companies.

In my first paying contract overseas, I went to the most expensive restaurant in my town.

Although I wore the same clothes and belonged to the same race, everybody was staring at me. The waitress would always reiterate the price of meals.

I actually felt pretty good.

<comment><USER18> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcrZIK3gqbU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcrZIK3gqbU) ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I once went out to lunch at a modest restaurant with a couple friends, one from a wealthy eastern family and one from poverty. The former was dressed like a slob, the latter in a nice suit.

I was fascinated how the former exuded class in how he comfortably dealt with the waiter and the wine list, etc., while the latter clearly was desperately trying to do that and failing.

The difference was apparent even in how they walked and sat.

<comment><USER19> The Wire, which of course is an absolutely excellent longform meditation on class, has a couple really great scenes illustrating this exact thing:

[http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xhhJVYK4nvQ](http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xhhJVYK4nvQ) [http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WmGemNT7urY](http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WmGemNT7urY)

<comment><USER9> For other good (albeit fictional) accounts of social class, there's "Gone With The Wind's" treatment of Rhett Butler by southern society, and "The Blue Max's" treatment of Bruno Stachel who rises from being an innkeeper's son to a role formerly reserved only for the nobility. (Neither is about money, but manners and behavior.)

<comment><USER20> UK class is all about manners. _And_ money.

The upper classes are effortlessly sociable, polished, and polite, even if they think you're an idiot - unless you're the help, in which case they aren't.

There are some subtle markers you can only learn either by being born into them or being told about them.

E.g. when middle class are introduced they say "Pleased to meet you."

When upper class people meet they say "How d'you do?" \- and if someone says "Pleased to meet you, they immediately know they're not dealing with one of their own."

I spent some time on the edges of the upper class scene, and the polish often hides drama and resentment - possibly because public school in the UK can sometimes seem to be a bizarre form of institutionalised child abuse.

It's hard to imagine someone who's set to inherit a gigantic country mansion feeling that life has given them a raw deal, but I've seen it happen.

There's also an almost complete absence of passionate creativity. I've seen working class kids (almost literally) kill to become musicians or artists. The upper classes sometimes drift into it, but the work is often derivative and shallow, and doesn't have the kick it has when someone has had to struggle.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I have a friend I grew up with in Florida that for some reason developed an extremely thick southern accent (I didn't).

He never finished college but started a machining company making parts for the food industry and has done very well making many times the money I have. He is a reasonably smart guy but most people wouldn't guess it talking to him. He sounds like he stepped directly out of the "Deliverance" movie. I didn't realize how bad it was until I saw him a year or two ago and even though he hasn't lived in the south in years, I swear his accent has gotten worse.

Obviously this would be a huge negative in certain professions in certain locations. But it certainly hasn't prevented him from succeeding. In fact, my theory is that it has helped and this is why the accent has gotten stronger.

His employees are mostly machinist/welder types. No way to say sissy to those guys more than speaking properly without accent. So maybe it give his some credibility with that crowd. He also does high dollar contracts for major companies. I bet more than a few times he has been sized up as "dumb hick we are going to take advantage of" and been severely underestimated in negations. Point being, in some times and places appearing a dumb hick might get one further than talking smart. Not in the software industry in California necessarily. There appearing smart might be more important than actually being smart:)

</comment><comment><USER22> The truth of the essay is illustrated by studies that show lower social mobility over longer generational windows, i.e. ones grandfather's income quintile is a better predictor of ones owns than ones fathers's. The intangible cultural inheritance of social class is more lasting than fluctuations in material wealth.

<comment><USER23> Do you have links to those studies?

I've always found the reflexivity of class to be somewhat interesting. Economically, my family is in the bottom quartile of the country—but it never felt like that. They definitely raised me with "upper class" values and attitudes. (For example, there was never even a shadow of a doubt about whether I'd attend college.) My grandparents, on the other hand, were quite well off.

As such, I've always felt more comfortable and fit in with people whose families have incomes vastly exceeding my family's.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I haven't finished the article yet, but one thing that strikes me is the flamboyant use of vocabulary. Given the topic, I'm not sure whether it's just a peculiarity of the author, an attempt to tailor the reception of the piece with regard to specific audiences, a slight trolling or the reader, or a combination thereof.

For example, early on we get "impecunious" and "shibboleths", followed up shortly afterwards with "booboo" (!). I find it distracting, to the point that I've lost the main thread of the article and I'm now wondering what the author was trying to accomplish with this style, if anything.

I often find myself switching to a different form of conversing when debating here, but I would like to think that's because I'm trying to be precise, and so I switch to a more precise method of expression. Sometimes that makes it into my speech, for example when I'm trying to explain or diagnose a problem. It can be detrimental to communication if leaned on too heavily though.

<comment><USER25> You ask in another comment whether you are oblivious. Playfully, I respond "Yes, you are oblivious".

Using "shibboleth" as a shibboleth is itself a shibboleth. She's declaring her _bona fides_ (gratuitous Latin is also a shibboleth, especially if highlighted with italics) as a scholar by demonstrating her ability to use an obscure term correctly, and is being gracious to her audience by assuming their comprehension. Switching to "booboo" is intentional, showing consciousness of register.

My background is somewhat similar to hers, although without the parental guidance. Perhaps as a result, my acculturation was less successful. I think this is a brilliant article, and (having read and enjoyed many of your other comments on this site) I encourage you start from the assumption that the author is fully conscious of the tone of this piece.

<comment><USER26> The author is obviously self-aware and this is precisely what makes it frustrating. Nearly every point is obfuscated through ornamentation, or broken up into parenthetical statements like a jigsaw puzzle. The entire article could be summarized in a concise paragraph with minimal loss of meaning. It's just pretension.

<comment><USER27> This writing style is itself a performance of Rationalist culture. Read anything by The Last Psychiatrist or Scott Alexander or Eliezer Yudkowsky for comparison.

<comment><USER28> You think The Last Psychiatrist is performing Rationalist culture? I hadn't noticed such a relationship, and at a moment's consideration I still don't notice it, and if you really do think that, I'd appreciate any evidence you can point me to.

<comment><USER27> I do think so; hard to prove if reading the content isn't argument enough. One fact is that TLP is the third link on the left-hand blog roll on SSC's website, so there's at least a one-way relationship. Anecdotally I remember reading something by Scott Alexander that mentioned that TLP was part of the LW community at one point, but I can't back this up with links.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Article raises an interesting point... I think the divide is valid between social class and economic class, however i will say it is much more fluid in US than in most other countries both developed countries like UK and developing countries like say India. I think the reason is because to the US point of view the ultimate social goal is financial success.

Next interesting point, I think a lot of the outrage with Donald Trump from within the republican party is he is projecting 'lower' class based signifiers and in effect turning power from the 'upper' class republicans to the 'lower' class republicans.

<comment><USER30> George W. Bush played up the good ole boy from Texas image. Even though he was from a wealthy East Coast family and went to Yale.

He was definitely trying to project an image of being from a lower social class, and he played to issues that lower social classes were more likely to support.

<comment><USER31> But the difference is that he still did whatever the wealthy republicans wanted too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Very interesting thought, that colleges' purpose is to acculturate one into a certain culture. That would explain why collegiate athletics are so important: because people of a particular college's culture place importance on chasing after balls on grassy fields, it's important for colleges to acculturate their students to watching people chase after balls on grassy fields. I'm not saying that sarcastically — as much as I personally have never understood the point collegiate athletics, it makes a lot of sense in this context.

I take issue with her desire to leave race out of the discussion. That's precisely the problem with race in America: race is a decent first-order approximation of class, with all the bad that entails. If we could address that head-on, if people didn't automatically assume that others of the same race are 'like them' and others of a different race are 'unlike them,' _and not have those things be true_ , then racism would be a thing of the past — or, at least, no worse than the silliness one sees about redheads/gingers. The colour of one's skin has no more effect on one's worth as a human being than the colour of one's hair: the day that it's seen as no more important is the day racism is dead. But as long as race and class are conflated, that day won't come.

> The ban on smoking in restaurants – which, let me be clear, I am wildly in > favor of, being someone who can't patronize a business with cigarette > smoking in it

Can't? Given that tobacco smoke contains no allergens, methinks the mot juste would be 'won't.'

> I empathize when social classes not mine find themselves on the short end of > the stick, such as in the above account of smoking regulations, but that > doesn't mean I'd do anything to change that outcome. Like, "Wow, it must > suck to have your class' norms so disrespected by a change in the law like > that. Welp, I'm off to buy a burger in this now refreshingly smoke-free > burger joint, and discuss with my class-peers how else we can change public > policy to make it more support my class' norms – even, if necessary, at your > class' norms' expense."

What was wrong with the previous policy, which meant that some places catered to the author's class and some places catered to other classes?

<comment><USER32> > That's precisely the problem with race in America: race is a decent first- > order approximation of class, with all the bad that entails.

Not really. I mean in my state (WA), 48% of people below the poverty line are white, 18% are hispanic, 14% are asian, 14% are black. Sure some approximations of some classes are heavily involved with race, but if you're discussing class dynamics in general race isn't a necessary distinction.

> If we could address that head-on, if people didn't automatically assume that > others of the same race are 'like them' and others of a different race are > 'unlike them,' and not have those things be true, then racism would be a > thing of the past...

Except that humans can't ignore race. The feel-good stories we tell each other about how we are naturally colorblind and taught to be racist, about how racism is an unnatural malignant artifact in our culture, are just that; stories. In reality children will show a strong preference for members of their own race by age 3, and it's not something we can just disappear.

<comment><USER33> > I mean in my state (WA), 48% of people below the poverty line are white, 18% > are hispanic, 14% are asian, 14% are black.

You may just be getting numbers back based on the ethnicity that predominantly lives in your state.

Look at relative poverty numbers. i.e., of the number of people who are of ethnicity X, how many are poor? I think you'll surely find a correlation that OP describes as a decent first-order approximation.

For example: white 9%, hispanic 18%, black 37%. That's 2x and 4x more likely to be poor vs white depending on if you're hispanic or black.

[0] [http://kff.org/other/state-indicator/poverty-rate-by- raceeth...](http://kff.org/other/state-indicator/poverty-rate-by- raceethnicity/)

<comment><USER32> Right, there will be a correlation, but that's not the point. The point is that class as a concept exists very much outside of race.

You can easily read the essay pretending that everybody in the US who isn't white simply doesn't exist, and it still makes completes sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> From the article: _" Most people are very ignorant of the norms and values of the social classes more than one degree above or below their own."_ Somewhere, there must be a "how to" guide for social class. There's a questionnaire, but other than some meaningless content on Quora, not much guidance.[1]

Where there is guidance, it's about language usage.[2] The classic on this being, of course, "My Fair Lady"[1]. This is less of an issue since TV and movies imposed a standard linguistic dialect.

The author likes Paul Fussell's "Class", which is an excellent read. It's quite funny.

Social class is less social than it used to be, and more marketed. As a horse owner, I've seen this change since the 1980s. In the 1980s, it would have been considered tacky to have advertising at a horse show. Now, Rolex ads are all over the place. Polo is the classic upper class sport (Silicon Valley has three polo fields), but polo players are usually people who were football jocks in high school, but not college.

Well into the 1980s, regular customers could sign their register receipts at Roberts of Woodside (a supermarket with an excellent deli) and be billed monthly.

[1] [http://www.asanet.org/introtosociology/Documents/Hidden%20Ru...](http://www.asanet.org/introtosociology/Documents/Hidden%20Rules%20of%20Social%20Class.htm) [2] [http://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1010...](http://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1010&context=pwpl) [3] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhninL_G3Fg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhninL_G3Fg)

<comment><USER35> If you're ignorant of the norms and values of the social classes more one degree below you, that's simply due to not watching television.

<comment><USER36> And not watching television is a very upper-class thing to do...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> LiveJournal is so low class, the author should've picked a nice middle-class platform like Medium to publish this </s>

<comment><USER38> Funny, to me it was an indicator of her age (ie when she started using the Internet). I have the same reaction to articles on blogger. I associate Medium with minimalist know-it-all bearded fixie hipster programmers (under 35). :p Still better then the SV(u)btle peeps (but less exclusive, by invitation only peeps, let's keep it classy!).

<comment><USER28> I agree with you (strongly about medium, though I disagree about blogger). Or, to put it in terms more related to the article...

Medium is nouveau riche, LJ is authentic aristocracy. If you think Medium is "nice middle-class", it means you're lower-middle-class.

PS: I can't tell if I'm kidding or not.

PPS: what does it say about my class that I thought these post-scripts are a good idea?

<comment><USER38> Correct insertion of the extra P tells me so much about you. This whole social class stuff is quite funny when you start thinking about it. I'm terribly judgmental it seems...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> norea-armozel I think the question of social class applies to my situation quite well considering that despite the fact that I'm a programmer and have a degree in computer science I honestly don't fit in well with people who would be described as middle class. Working class still seems to apply to me despite my salary and job.

<comment><USER31> This is widely true in a lot of other engineering disciplines, especially those that are more hands-on. Anecdotally, in certain parts of the country this is why engineers (think mechanical, civil, etc) are viewed a large step below "true white collar management" types.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Culture in many ways is an adaptation to local conditions magnified though feedback loops. Deserts promote different types of stories vs. grasslands vs. seashore. Now days location is less important, but wealth and poverty are also worlds apart.

What IMO get's lost in these discussions is poor people can make rational choices that conflict with wealthy culture. "Sorry, broke" is a shield for many things making savings often money that you simply don't get to spend. What happens when your 50 and owe more money than you will make in the rest of your life?

</comment><comment><USER40> Relevant: [http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/01/30/staying- classy/](http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/01/30/staying-classy/)

<comment><USER41> > the Left engages in Orwellian doublethink, insisting the problem doesn't > exist and shouldn't be spoken of.

> Politically, the left pretends class doesn't exist

...what?

<comment><USER42> One of OP's early theses is that the left is all about economic class, but can't admit social classes exist, so conflates them with economic class in order to talk about them.

<comment><USER41> Who exactly can't admit social classes exist? Karl Marx was very aware of the existence of status classes running counter to economic classes (the status of wealthy jewish people of low-status in Europe was fascinating to proto- sociologists, many of them jewish), he just theorized that economic class was "the big one" from which the others stemmed. Jews as a social class weren't sprung from the ether, though.

Max Weber, another leftist considered one of the fathers of sociology, named the "Status Class", related to prestige, one of the three main ones along economic and political allegiance ones.

Modern intersectionalists routinely bring up how arbitrary many of our social predilections seem to be, such as "tan white > white > black", or "pink is for girls", and look at these chicken-and-egg situations trying to figure out where they started. Where does the impetus for this bloggers' parents _verbally check[ing] us in a heartbeat if the vowel in our "to" started getting too schwa-like_ come from?

The big mistake made by the author of that piece is the idea that they can isolate class and talk about it as its own thing. It's a very scientist-like analytic-approach (kinda like Marx isolating economic factors in spite of the others), but seeing as the author is openly _against_ abolishing classes, it seems to be in service of discrediting the efforts of the economically- conscious-left ("even if you abolish economic classes social classes will prevail, so don't bother") rather than as an honest intellectual inquiry.

With this line:

> Please note: for purposes of this discussion, the topics of race, ethnicity, > gender, immigration status, and native language are all derails of the > topic, which is class.

The author seems more concerned with prevailing than with being correct.

<comment><USER42> If your benchmark for analyzing the modern left is a collection of theorists from a hundred years ago, you're going to misunderstand a lot more than just this.

<comment><USER43> If you think "left" is precise enough category to talk about meaningfully, you're going to misunderstand lot more than just this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> This is well worth the read. It's far too easy not to perceive the class issues she brings up, because we're so uncomfortable discussing them. And if you're affluent, it's much easier not to think of yourself as part of a self- perpetuating privileged class.

</comment><comment><USER45> The telltale sign of classicism in modern America is how the upper middle classes continue to put up with inflated college tuition fees. They're basically paying to keep the lower classes out.

</comment><comment><USER46> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_mobility](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_mobility) != [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_mobility](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_mobility)

<comment><USER47> I feel programmers have made it econimically. I know a large number of devs in their 30s who make over 200k a year. But we haven't climbed the social ladder as well. Maybe that follows the money.

<comment> norea-armozel Yep, that's definitely my situation in life. Still working class despite the salary. It's like the areas that are suppose to be open to me seem hostile to my mere presence. I'm not sure if it's the way I walk, talk, act, or whatever. Just the look on certain people's faces really tell me that I'm not welcomed or "one of them" without a single word said on the matter. It's so weird being aware of it now after all these years.

<comment><USER7> Again, from the article:

> It is a common misconception that the primary obstacle to being in a much > higher class is money to afford the things by which one performs that class. > The limiting factor is not money, it is this: it is impossible to join a > culture the ways of which you know nothing. You may come by money, but the > ignorance of how to use it to perform that higher class will keep you out as > adamantly as if there were a wall built around it.

So learn from this. Learn how to perform as upper middle class. Learn to radiate more confidence, try to look like you belong. If you look like a trespasser, if for a moment you look like you cannot believe you would end up in a place like _this_ , you're exposed as not "one of us".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> If you're interested in this, the Cracked podcast discussed this article and related articles.

[http://www.cracked.com/podcast/americas-secret-caste- system/](http://www.cracked.com/podcast/americas-secret-caste-system/)

</comment><comment><USER49> Yeah I got rid of my accent years ago when I realized that stigma existed. I also try to sound...less gay (idk how else to explain it) when I'm dealing with new people. Deeper voice, neutral accent, etc. It's pretty annoying to have to dodge random prejudices but that's life I guess.

</comment><comment><USER50> _Thus social class and economic class are not identical, they are intersectional. They relate and they mediate one another, but they are not the same thing._

And both of these are not identical to race in the US, but their perception is indeed still partially mediated by race.

<comment><USER51> I find it frustrating that while everyone seems to be fine discussing privilege afforded by ethnicity, lack of disabilities or gender, the elephant in the room tends to get ignored: people like Zuckerberg or Gates weren't just privileged because they were born in the right skin (including the dangly bits) but also because they were born into the right families.

If you are studying in an Ivy League tier university in the US and your parents know influential people in major companies, you are incredibly privileged. And as the article lays out, this actually reflects two forms of privilege: social class and economic class (of parents, close family, potential love interests and eventually yourself as an aggregate).

The number of trans, non-male, non-white or non-heterosexual founders and leaders in major tech companies gets talked about every now and then. But I doubt any of those (proportional to the absolute distribution across the population) is significantly more concerning than the number of people from lower social and economical classes in the same roles.

Of course these attributes can compound (e.g. "race" is often used as a handle for social class) but diversity needs to take all factors into account in order to fulfil its promise. Nepotism isn't just about skin colour and dangly bits, and class discrimination is far easier to hide behind "culture fit" than other forms of discrimination.

<comment><USER50> According to the op, class discrimination _is_ "culture fit."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> A couple of related posts that I found very interesting and are probably worth sharing here:

A reddit discussion on bullshitting and class: [http://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/1h3j08/generatio...](http://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/1h3j08/generation_y_why_young_voters_are_backing_the/caqq8th?context=2) with a link to this piece: [http://brightgreenscotland.org/index.php/2013/06/my- public-s...](http://brightgreenscotland.org/index.php/2013/06/my-public- school-days-the-building-of-upper-class-solidarity/)

<comment><USER52> Just realized the second link is broken and can't edit the original comment. Fixed link: [http://bright-green.org/2013/06/25/my-public-school-days- the...](http://bright-green.org/2013/06/25/my-public-school-days-the-building- of-upper-class-solidarity/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> I had an almost jarring occurrence of this happen when I graduated with my BSME. My first name is traditionally associated with old rednecks. I sent out a hundred or so resumes before I got any response at all - an offhand comment about duct tape engineering.

For whatever reason, that clicked with me. So, I added my middle name to my resume and had a job within a week. I've been going by my middle name professionally ever since.

</comment><comment><USER54> Have a friend with tattoos everywhere; his recent remarks about a local yacht club had a layer of loath attached. It's as if he despises my 1) access and 2) ability to stroll around (no visible tattoos). He grew up inland, I didn't. His mom thinks money is bad, my family doesn't. The difference in the details make all the difference !

</comment><comment><USER55> The authors family sought to raise their blue collar class to a higher one. I have for years thought of a non-profit that might do this by sponsoring children into music instrument lessons, horseback riding, and language lessons. Things that most (say 75% of people) cannot afford. This could be done in group lessons to save on cost.

<comment><USER11> I don't think it's simply a "can't afford" issue. If the parents don't make a conscious, long-term effort (like in the author's case), you risk a huge blowback from them when the kids start acting "strangely". Nerds get bullied in school for being different than jocks; imagine having that happen with everyone you encounter, including your parents.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> I'm wondering if using "IIII" instead of "IV" for the 4th chapter was intentional or it has to do with the social class of the author =)

</comment><comment><USER57> I moved from NYC to the rural reaches of upstate New York when I was 11. My family and folks I hung out had a mixed of "Lunged Idland", Brooklyn and Irish accents. Nobody had any idea what I was saying for several months after moving, with good reason.

The accent still pops out once in awhile, usually when I'm tired or agitated. Some folks find it grating or aggressive. I just tell them to screw off.

</comment><comment><USER58> Interesting, but annoyingly condescending.

</comment><comment><USER59> This is a very good article.

In America, there is also an example where we "build up" the social class of some segment to compensate for our self-centered guilt.

Take the example of the military service. The vast majority of people would rather be at the mall and let someone else fight and die for the country. But the "I support our troops" bumper sticker is everywhere, or maybe they sent ten bucks to Fisher House or Operation Homefront, but not once have those people wanted to volunteer at a veterans hospital.

So what do we do to cover got guilt? "Ah, let's do a parade for them!!!"

<comment><USER60> When I was a teenager I thought charity absent asceticism was pathetic. Why give the homeless guy your pocket change when you can afford to give him $20 for dinner? Why donate to the fire department, when you could make time in your life to volunteer for the fire department? (I live in a small New England town where volunteer depts are the norm.)

Compensating for self-centered guilt is not evil or virtuous. Life is not boolean. When you start to dig into any one person's psychology it's amazing any of us have the gumption to wake up in the morning and accomplish anything given how much of our habits and behaviors are coping mechanisms for something else.

This was a very good article. But the conclusion that we should all feel guilty for covering up our guilt with social class worship is not terribly productive.

<comment><USER61> > But the conclusion that we should all feel guilty for covering up our guilt > with social class worship is not terribly productive.

I didn't think that was the conclusion at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> >disproportionately impact the impecunious – the almost-certain forthcoming hike in T fares looms large in my anxieties right now – but I am a professional with an advanced degree and possession of the shibboleths of the professional class

This actually hurt to read. It sounds like an excerpt from a Nabokov novel.

(Don't get me wrong, Nabokov is a fantastic writer. But there is a time and place for writing like that, and this is not one of them.)

</comment><comment><USER41> It's a bit disturbing to me how enthusiastically the SlaterStarCodex crowd latches onto this "fuck you, got mine" essay, gushing with praise and admiration about telling it like it is. The entire thing is a rationalization for the thinking illustrated in these quotes:

> _I feel the need for a disclaimer of sorts. I am writing about class and > some of the injustices of classism, but I do not particularly pretend to > position myself as an enemy of classism: I 'm pretty classist. And by > "pretty classist", I don't mean in the sense of "Everybody's a Little Bit > Racist" or "gee, internalized misogyny is hard to totally eradicate". No, I > mean closer to Segregation and PUAs._

> _My parents were born of blue collar families in blue collar communities and > were of concerted agreement that their life goals were to flee that class > and never have anything to do with it again. Elevating their – and their > progeny 's – social class was the family project. They enlisted my sister > and I in this project, and were explicit, formal, and unapologetic about > it._

> _I empathize when social classes not mine find themselves on the short end > of the stick, such as in the above account of smoking regulations, but that > doesn 't mean I'd do anything to change that outcome. Like, "Wow, it must > suck to have your class' norms so disrespected by a change in the law like > that. Welp, I'm off to buy a burger in this now refreshingly smoke-free > burger joint, and discuss with my class-peers how else we can change public > policy to make it more support my class' norms – even, if necessary, at your > class' norms' expense."_

The idea that "the Left" engages in "Orwellian double-think" with regards to class, is also pretty puzzling.

> _A thing that has been very frustrating to me is that most books and other > discussions I have been able to find that really address that social classes > are cultures have come out of the Right. Again this pattern: the Right, at > least, admits the phenomenon exists, mostly so they can hate on people (also > see "culture of poverty"); the Left engages in Orwellian doublethink, > insisting the problem doesn't exist and shouldn't be spoken of._

The Left promotes class-consciousness with the goal of abolishing unjust and arbitrary delineations, in its many dimensions (including the extremely well acknowledged ones such as vernacular). The idea that "the Left" has no notion that a poor Led Zeppelin fan can be higher class than the wife of a wealthy drug-dealer is insane.

edit: reply to gjm (because I got flagged too much)

The author

\- belittles their opposition (ie: "It is a common confusion – _or intellectual dodge_ – to conflate social class with economic class."),

\- expresses veiled dismay that they can't "describe an ethnic, regional, or national culture with contempt, as broken or defective",

\- is against legal prejudices today, but against any measures that attempt to correct the damage caused by those legal prejudices in the past ("I'm on-board with the idea that all people have equal rights before the law, and entitled to a baseline level of respect as fellow humans, but I'm not sure how much further than that I go." \- ie: the arrangement looks like this today, deal with it as if it was fair regardless of how we got here)

\- and concludes with "let's leave race out of it for the moment", echoing much of the talk by LessWrong-types "tired" of talk of sexism and racism.

This piece is not just a humble description of how they see the world, it's very prescriptive. The overall impression I get is a righteous defense of the "fuck you, got mine" mentality, very inspired by Ayn Rand.

<comment><USER63> It's a common attitude in a lot of LessWrong-adjacent blogs: analyze some complex phenomenon that the social sciences have studied in depth, but act as if no one has ever thought of it before. So when class comes up, it's better to think of in the terms of some rando blogger, not (for instance) Bourdieu or Weber.

And then when you get absurd results, it proves your originality and willingness to look past conventional wisdom.

<comment><USER64> Bourdieu and Weber are "rando bloggers" compared to Marx, perhaps we should write them off too?

<comment><USER63> Presumably anyone studying Weber and Bourdieu has also studied Marx. Anyway, Weber's influence on sociology is huge, comparable to Marx's, and Bourdieu was obviously influenced by Marx, so your comparison doesn't work on any level, really.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


New study shows we work harder when we are happy - <AUTHOR> http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/pressreleases/new_study_shows/ <comment><USER2> I love Middle Temple - it's about half a square mile of neatly manicured lawns and cloistered offices for some of London's highest paid Barristers. About 700 years ago they put a wall up around it and basically had their army face down the Kings army. It's been a legal enclave ever since, you walk through a tiny door in one of London's busiest streets and wham, lawns, quiet, collegiate atmosphere, rich lawyers in their own quietish rooms.

Basically it's how knowledge workers with power and money have chosen to work for half a millennia.

It's how all knowledge workers should work if they want to act at their peak.

Don't really need a study to show treating people like cattle is not the way to get the best results.

Edit: I know someone who works there will probably say it's not _that_ good, and the grass is greener I am sure but I swear it's hands down better to be a junior counsel in any of the Temples than pretty much any other office environment in London, outside of Universities and Monarchy.

<comment><USER3> I'd definitely agree with this. I live very near Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and it's pretty much that exact thing.

It's a big chunk of land with large grassy areas, roads lined with towering trees, and a sky as huge as you can imagine. Here's a picture I took there about this time last year: [http://i.imgur.com/IqlUadN.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/IqlUadN.jpg)

<comment><USER4> Anecdotally, the PNNL people I've worked with were, well not very good at their craft. PNNL is in the middle of nowhere, unless you're at the top of the game doing highly specialized work there that truly can only be done at PNNL (and not kidding yourself either), you're out of touch and not contributing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I did all sorts of things -- and filled many often "menial" tasks outside of my official job description.

All I ever really wanted was a quiet workspace where I could concentrate. Corporate America nonetheless continually insisted that this one thing was impossible, "unproductive", and not going to happen.

"Happiness". Our latest buzzword. Well, my consistent message was that I needed this one thing to be "happy". And my results, even without this being provided, were far above average.

 _ALL_ this "talk" and "analysis" about what makes people "better workers", is -- put into this context -- bullshit. It is simply _BULLSHIT_.

That is it, in a word.

Companies that don't have "productive workers"? Stop looking at the workers. Start looking at yourselves. And if you can't actually _listen_ to what your workers actually _have to say?_ Well then, just fuck off.

<comment><USER6> The basic "problem" with what you're asking for is that it inverts the power relationship between management and labor. In asking for a quiet space to think and act accordingly, what you're really expecting is autonomy. Within this environment, managers become facilitators / concierges. They are manifestly _not_ the "leaders". Nor are they bosses in any traditional sense of the word.

From the perspective of capital, this isn't such a bad thing. After all, capital cares about the ends, not the means. Management, on the other hand, is intensely concerned with he means, and specifically, with any means that don't assure them a position of social dominance.

This is not a call to cut out the middlemen that sit between capital and labor. Rather, it's a suggestion that both capital and labor would be better off if the role and status of management were changed quite dramatically.

As an immediate consequence, professional management roles would start attracting a _very_ different sort of candidate. Ideally, this change would represent a structural imposition of the No Asshole Rule.

<comment><USER5> There is a hypocrisy. Language about wanting "educated" workers who are "empowered" to solve problems.

The environment that is created and fostered is exactly the opposite.

I "paid my dues". I delivered, and exceeded -- as repeatedly acknowledged by my management.

Despite that, there was very limited acceptance of my input into what would make things better.

The problem with calling this a "problem", is that it puts the finger right upon the hypocrisy of _ALL_ this language and discussion. Employers are saying one thing, and doing exactly the opposite.

My message to younger folks is precisely this: _DON 'T_ buy in to _ANY_ of today's messaging.

If you don't see concrete, useful _ACTIONS_ , it is simply, as I said, "bullshit". End of story.

There: I just saved you twenty years.

P.S. And that means actions _NOW_. Any and all language about what is to come? Empty. Just substitute a big NULL -- or perhaps even an error condition, if you perceive it may be part of an intentional effort to deceive that goes beyond just "normal" empty messaging.

P.P.S. Despite the validity of what I've said (I think), I find my personal bitterness is again spilling over into my comments. Time for another break from making them.

By the way, some of those "menial" tasks were -- of themselves and due to interactions with colleagues -- actually the more enjoyable parts of some jobs.

Too bad that so much of actually, physically "getting the job done" seems to be looked down on, these days. Do it too much or too willingly, and you risk getting pigeon-holed as either too culpable/readily-exploitable or otherwise not... "management material", for lack of a better expression for it.

P.P.S. I meant to add that in my experience, some of the specific events described in the OP were actually for me some of the most depressing experiences:

Official "parties" and "celebrations" one attended because it was mandatory or expected, refreshments and other expenses were all "budgeted" in a rather obvious fashion, and conversation had little to go beyond work topics or the same conversation that was already happening cube-side and "at the water coooler".

All the more sad when employees were expected to kick in to cover the expenses.

A genuine evening out that one paid for oneself and where one had some fun? Fine. These "we're going to celebrate now" events -- not so much.

I guess some people enjoy them. To me, much of it seemed terribly transparent and shallow. For my part, I still tried to and mostly succeeded in being genuine during them. But it was not that much "fun" and didn't make me very "happy", and because of my honesty often put me somewhat on the periphery, socially.

"Forced conversation", as the alternative. Ugh.

<comment><USER7> tl dr: "talk != actions" except it hurts more when its tied to income or employment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It is just so depressing that people have to be _told_ this. I don't understand how corporate types got so inhuman.

<comment><USER7> You'll notice all successful corps have happy, hard working people, who believe in what they do.

They'll always eventually change into unhappy people with no cause left to work for.

That generally seems to happen because as soon as the company is successful, people see opportunities of getting rich and squeezing as much as they can from it "before its too late".

Ie the wealthiness of one seems to be worth making thousands miserable in their eyes. Since they're not _directly_ making people poor and it takes some time I'm sure they don't even feel bad about it.

Of course, some people are better at keeping the ethical trajectory for a longer time and some companies are successful for a longer time than others.

I believe that the basic trigger for this to happen are called "free market" "capitalism" and "board of directors", "share holders".

It also means stuff will go up then down (and eventually up and down again and/or die). As human, we're pretty at good at going up/down in all areas.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's interesting that the difference in productivity is only 12%. I'd think a happy developer would be significantly more productive than a miserable one, far beyond 12%, just from personal experience of coding when I'm down and when I'm not.

<comment><USER10> Doesn't this imply that if a company is spending more than 12% of its workforce-related costs on perks and other happiness-inducing stuff, then it could save money by cutting all that and hiring 12% more workers?

<comment><USER11> No, because perks aren't just there to make employees more productive. They're also there to make sure they stay at the company in the first place.

<comment><USER10> Excellent point. I hadn't thought of that in this context.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Wow, and we needed research to get to that conclusion! As if someone would have any doubt that this is the case...

</comment><comment><USER13> So, I think that there is something that a lot of businesses have trouble dealing with:

 _Employees are a leaky abstraction._

People are what you employ--and even if they present the IEmployee interface, they are still human beings who get mad, get happy, fight, fuck, flee, cry, laugh, and do all the other things that are more complicated than just taking in object A and emitting object B.

The best people I've worked with understand this, and have been understanding and supportive when things in life go sideways--and then their teams do the best work.

Especially in a knowledge/creative industry such as software engineering, it can be very hard to produce anything useful when you're stressed/scared/sad/pissed about something. Oftentimes, you need to go deal with those pesky facts of being a person and then come back, at which point your work will be much better and overall time loss lessened.

Trying to drive employees to produce when they're not at their best, or allowing them to drive themselves when they clearly have other things that need sorting out, is ultimately counterproductive.

For straightforward manual labor, one can make an argument that it shouldn't matter (and even then, consider accidents on the job when somebody's mind was on personal problems), but again creativity is very closely tied with how you're feeling.

Interestingly enough, this is a great time to plug universal healthcare--it helps lessen the burdens on companies and employees to deal with health issues, and that in turn helps plug some of the leakiness.

</comment><comment><USER14> Interesting study.

1\. Did they measure short-term happiness vs long-term happiness? The study involved making people feel good for a short period of time and a task whose duration was for a short period of time.

2\. Is it enough to make your employee happy right before he starts on a task, even if he is miserable throughout the remaining period? What will be the effects of productivity in such a situation?

3\. The paper refers to Erez and Isen (2005): "positive well-being induces subjects to change their allocation of time towards more interesting tasks, and that, despite this, the subjects retain similar levels of performance in the less interesting tasks".

Doesn't this mean that a person's state of happiness does not have much of an effect for doing mundane tasks?

</comment><comment><USER15> Maybe I'm weird, but I work harder and produce better work when I have axe to grind, and unhappy. Also, I've noticed that happier coworkers eventually get lazier and more complacent.

<comment><USER16> I believe there's also some relation to the task/type of job you are doing, if you work alone or as part of a team, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Obviously going for this years ignoble in economics then :-) to be followed up by an in depth proof that water is wet and kittens are cute.

</comment><comment><USER18> It's so funny that for 99% of people the word "hardness" is equals to "productivity".

</comment><comment><USER19> Now how about doing some 'real' research on methods, which would make people stay happy at work.

</comment><comment><USER20> See also Shawn Achor's "Happiness Advantage" for similar themes from an employee POV.

</comment><comment><USER21> Evil boss would read these results as we are happy when we work harder.

</comment><comment><USER22> News at 11

</comment><comment><USER23> Long blog post on this question: [http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/03/12/gervais- macle...](http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/03/12/gervais- macleod-8-human-nature-theories-x-y-z-and-a/)

The Theory X workplace believes people have to be intimidated into working. Theory X managers love to micromanage, to play psychological games, and to be mysterious and slightly terrifying to the people below them.

Theory Y holds that people do their best work when they're happy, enabled, and trusted.

Who's right? Mostly, Y. It is almost obviously true that people do their best work when happy. There is one issue with Theory Y workplaces, which is that while being decent and liberal in trusting people with their own time and energy tends to pay off without fail when creativity and output are measured, one does have to take a hard-line (even zero-tolerance) approach on certain ethical issues. It goes back to what Lord Acton said about judging talent at its best and character at its worst.

The reason there are so few Theory Y/R&D workplaces left is that, in the 1980s (Reagan Era) people sold out their companies to snag private equity jobs (thanks, Boomer yuppies!) making the case that maybe workers shouldn't be liberally trusted. The Theory Y workplace died out because it couldn't defend itself against what people became in a time of increasing economic inequality (more specifically: potential for personal advancement through unethical means).

As much as they're reviled here, the three-letter agencies (NSA, CIA, etc.) do a great job of this. They're Theory Y work environments in general (employees are treated very well) but take a "need to know" stance on high-level secrets that could kill people if lost, and have a zero-tolerance policy regarding leaks. They take a mostly Theory Y approach on peoples' ability to work hard given the right context, but are X (that is, very conservative with trust) on the things that need to be protected.

</comment><comment><USER24> How do you define "happy"? One person's hell can be another person's heaven. It seems very subjective.

<comment><USER7> so if the ceo and executive are happy and all minions are unhappy, that's ok, right.

<comment><USER25> I don't even understand why you would say this...

This is not what the parent comment said... it just asked how 'happiness' is measured.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Google Maps + Pokemon, for real this time: Mobbles - <AUTHOR>

Following the Google Maps April's fool and seeing the reaction around it, I feel the need to post about our app: Mobbles ( http://www.mobbles.com )
In a nutshell, it's Google Maps + Pokemon + tamagotchis
It's a real-life creature hunting. Once caught, you'll need to take care of your creatures (like Tamagotchis), you can then trade/fight them with your friends!
Some creatures are only catchable in Asia. Some creatures are only catchable in France. Some creatures are only catchable during full moon nights. Some creature are only catchable early in the morning. etc.
We've had some users tell us they go out at night and hunt! Or users actually putting their alarm clock early to catch this one Mobble! Some feedbacks are quite unbelievable sometimes, like someone crossing the whole city of LA to catch an exclusive Mobble we put around the convention center during E3.
HN is actually responsible for this game since we applied through our incubator (I/O venture) after sseing a link here.
Anyway, for those who are frustrated by Google's april fool, you should give Mobbles a try! Looking forward to your feedback! <comment><AUTHOR> Clickable [http://www.mobbles.com](http://www.mobbles.com)

</comment><comment><USER2> Where are you based? Are you hiring?

<comment><AUTHOR> Please shoot us an email at email@example.com</comment></comment>


Yahoo Cloud Object Storage at Exabyte Scale - <AUTHOR> http://yahooeng.tumblr.com/post/116391291701/yahoo-cloud-object-store-object-storage-at

<comment><USER2> This is pretty great to see. I was hoping that Ceph itself would scale to exabytes without another layer on top.

However I suspect (only guessing here) that things like S3 are implemented similarly, with multiple layers and replication at the lower layers.</comment>


Electoral Fraud in the 2016 Democratic Primaries - <AUTHOR> http://democracyintegrity.org/ElectoralFraud/just-doing-the-math.html <comment><AUTHOR> > the discrepancies shown in all of the above final results have been > consistently larger than the MoE in favor of Hillary in 11 of the 26 > primaries. The probability of this happening without fraud is 1 in 77 > billion

Can someone with a stats background say if this math (and the rest in the first half of the article) is correct?</comment>


People have no idea which sciences are robust - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/03/people-have-no-idea-which-sciences-are-robust/ <comment><USER2> I really wish "data" journalism did a better job of conveying uncertainty. It is incredibly common to see comments like such-and-such increased 10%, without any comment on what the number of such-and-such actually was or if the 10% change was statistically significant. Likewise journalists often make claims that are not supported by the research. Scientists don't have the reach to describe their results to the public, news organizations need to do a better job of conveying the results accurately.

</comment><comment><USER3> Also related, people need to understand what "wrong" means in the context of sciences. In many cases, wrong is merely that our model improved, but the old model was still perfectly adequate for most practical purposes. Isaac Asimov wrote a wonderful essay on the subject:

[http://chem.tufts.edu/answersinscience/relativityofwrong.htm](http://chem.tufts.edu/answersinscience/relativityofwrong.htm)

</comment><comment><USER4> Physics and chemistry are pretty robust, everything else is far squishier. It's pretty easy to get identical atoms or molecules or subatomic particles. It's much harder to grow a field of identical plants or raise hundreds of identical mice.

<comment><USER5> Agreed, from a Physicist's perspective, Darwin's Theory is extremely "squishy".

<comment><USER6> My impression is that physicists who say this usually don't know much about the theory and evidence for evolution. (I am trained in physics, I now do biophysics).

What about the beautiful and often very precise linear relationship between radioactive dating of the fossil record, and genetic dating using the molecular clock?

What about the beatiful correspondence often found between the principle components of genetic variation and geographical position (isolation by distance)?

What about all the biochemical discoveries related to DNA function (including the existence of DNA itself), how mutations occur, about heritability?

What about everything we've discovered about genome composition and how it changes over time? (duplicate genes, pseudogenes, transposons, hotspots of various kinds).

Is a DNA sequence less precise than a spectral line?

<comment><USER7> (Bioinformatics) I wonder if he means not that evolution is false/unfalsifiable/irreproducible, but that it is not really a very predictive theory. I agree there is a lot of evidence that it happened and continues to happen, but predicting _how_ it will happen, i.e., how an organism will evolve, what genes will mutate etc, in a certain environment, is very difficult and really basically impossible.

> What about the beatiful correspondence often found between the principle > components of genetic variation and geographical position (isolation by > distance)?

Funny you mention this. There is a student I work with trying to observe this with metagenomics data with much less success than you might imagine.

<comment><USER8> > _but predicting how it will happen, i.e., how an organism will evolve, what > genes will mutate etc, in a certain environment, is very difficult and > really basically impossible._

By that measure physics isn't predictive either. Any moderately complex system and the best we can do is statistical models, often with little to no predictive power.

<comment><USER9> Statistical models doesn't mean that there is no predictive power.

If we look at a (perfectly random) coin flip we can predict a 50% chance of heads. We can also predict the likelihood of distributions of values over x flips. If the system we are modeling is inherently statistical we would expect our prediction to be statistical.

You are also confusing the fact that the stuff in physics that isn't statistical in nature has extreme precision. Think of how well we know the orbits of planets.

<comment><USER7> Your overall point is correct, but I would add that there is no such thing as a non-statistical model or prediction in any science or aspect of physical reality IMO. For two reasons: A) reality is inherently statistical at the quantum level, and B) measurement error will always exist.

Thus even our models of planetary orbits are statistical. The inverse-square law, GM1M2/r^2, even if it perfectly describes reality (probably, but not entirely certain! see [1]), will have some degree of measurement error in M1, M2, and r (not to mention G) and so the resulting Fg will be a distribution, not a single number technically speaking.

It seems that the situations where physics can best describe things with very high accuracy is when it can abstract away many relatively homogeneous particles or entities into a bigger "thing" with aggregate properties. For example, in fluid dynamics or gravity, you don't attempt to determine the behavior of individual particles, which would be subject to enormous uncertainty, only the behavior of the system-as-a-whole. By the law of large numbers then the uncertainties decrease dramatically.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modified_Newtonian_dynamics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modified_Newtonian_dynamics)

<comment><USER9> Yes, but you're implying "predictive" means 100% accurate. No science, no math, no language, will ever be 100% accurate. We say things have predictive power if we can, to a reasonable degree, if our results reflect our prediction. This is definitely true. And most those equations involve a pi. Pi doesn't have an end. There is ALWAYS and WILL ALWAYS be some uncertainty to our predictions. But is it that big of a deal if we can predict a planet's location down to the nm? Would you even say that it isn't predictive if we were off by 10km? No, you wouldn't. Because it is a planet and if you are looking for a planet and off by 10km you will still find the planet because the error is small. It would also be unreasonable to calculate the location of a planet down to the plank scale.

And to your mention of everything being statistical because quantum, well there's a reason Newton's methods didn't require them to be powerful (useful or predictive). Because the likelihood of quantum like events happening on a macro scale is basically zero. Sure, your hand could quantum tunnel through a wall, but would we ever expect to see it within the lifetime of the universe?

We're talking about the relativity of wrong here[1]. Physics wouldn't have become so popular if it wasn't predictive. We don't need to be 100% to be predictive nor useful. Accuracy and predictiveness are two different things.

[1] [http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm](http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm)

<comment><USER7> > Yes, but you're implying "predictive" means 100% accurate.

No, I'm not. Or I didn't intend to, in fact I intended quite the opposite. I completely agree that "wrongness" is relative. "Wrongness" could be more accurately described as the amount of variance in a predictive model plus that model's divergence from reality.

My point was that all models and predictions are statistical/probabilistic, but not all have even the same order of magnitude of error. For shorthand, we pretend that models with very low variance/error are "exact" solutions, but in actual reality, they are not, they are just solutions that have a negligible error rate for the purpose at hand.

I am not implying anything like "well, psychology and physics both have probabilistic models, so they're equally valid". Their variance and error rate are very far apart. I agree physics is very predictive and has high accuracy but it is still probabilistic.

<comment><USER9> > My point was that all models and predictions are statistical/probabilistic, > but not all have even the same order of magnitude of error.

Definitely not. The models used in undergraduate physics classes, or even to high school physics are not statistical. A good example is ohm's law. When building circuits this is necessary to use. Works just great. Now this is different from any attempts at GUT, but that's a different ball game. And those are different models.

> For shorthand, we pretend that models with very low variance/error are > "exact" solutions

Maybe the public, but not the actual scientists. For shorthand we generally say "is" instead of "to an error we can't measure" because it is easier to say. But if you read the research papers errors are always included. But that's just language. Doing otherwise would be pedantic. Yes, the public gets confused, but for all they are concerned with these predictions might as well be "exact". When the public starts venturing out of their realm without learning they get confused with other more important ideas like "observer" and "information". Don't get me started on how many people believe stupid quantum stuff.

> they are just solutions that have a negligible error rate for the purpose at > hand.

This demonstrates that you understand my point too. Or that you don't understand what negligible is. But I think you understand. At a certain point we stop worrying. Why would you care if you could predict the location of a planet down to the 10^-40m? I get doing it just for fun and because you want to, but there is no practical purpose. Anything this accurate might as well be exact.

<comment><USER7> > The models used in undergraduate physics classes, or even to high school > physics are not statistical.

You are correct insofar as they are not _presented_ as being statistical. But in reality, they are. Ohm's law is a good example. Resistors in reality do not have the exact resistance specified on the package, but rather are constructed within a certain tolerance, so that the final behavior of the circuit will be, again, a distribution. This would be an example of measurement error. The quantum effects also exist, as Intel will affirm as they are trying to build very small transistors, and the behavior of such transistors is probabilistic.

> Maybe the public, but not the actual scientists...

Ehh, I'm an "actual scientist". I work in bioinformatics & medical research. I don't care about what the public thinks for the purposes of this conversation. Even actual scientists will sometimes use this shorthand if the error is small enough, which is fine by me.

> At a certain point we stop worrying...but there is no practical purpose.

You're right. When we talk about the error rate in predicting planetary orbits, there is no practical purpose. My only point in my original reply was that the "exact" is a special case and a simplification of the statistical model, which is ubiquitous. If we are wanting to be technically correct, however, I stand by my assertion that all physical laws are inherently statistical.

I think we don't really disagree. This all started because you asserted there are phenomena which are "not statistical in nature", which I disagree with at a pedantic level.

<comment><USER9> > which I disagree with at a pedantic leve

I think we'll agree there. Because while you are technically correct you aren't practically.

Like how the Newtonian equations taught to undergrads literally don't have statistics. It isn't that it isn't presented to them that way, it is that they are using a different model. Going through physics (because this is the experience I have) you just keep learning better and better models.

As for Intel, you're confusing micro and macro scales. With the ohm's law you just measure the resistor before applying. This would be common procedure, depending on application. But this conversation is really arguing extremely fine points.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The sample studied by Broomell and Kane contained 217 people! While the results may be "interesting" and "evocative", the size of the sample really does not allow any conclusions to be drawn. The arstechnica post ignores the details; read the original paper.

<comment><USER11> An _online_ survey at that, meaning that they can't even properly gauge if that sample was representative at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Some sciences are not robust because they are hard to make robust. In contrast, forensic science, the example given in this article as perceived by the public as robust, seems to be set up by the government's criminal justice apparatus to ensure that the state imprisons and executes as many people as possible. Examples of impossible and absurd forensic science include the results of James Grigson, Pamela Fish, Annie Dookhan, Michael West, Steven Hayne, John Preston, and FBI hair analysis.

For example, Steven Hayne claimed that he could tell from a bullet wound that more than one person was holding the gun. John Preston claimed his dog could track a human scent on a street after a hurricane. Annie Dookhan and Pamela Fish falsified drug and DNA tests.

</comment><comment><USER13> Ironically, polling and association studies like this would be something I'd classify as low precision.

</comment><comment> charles-salvia The article attributes a lot of the results to the perception of varying degrees of precision in these various fields, but a lot of the results are also explainable via US politics. Words like "climate change", and by extension "climatology", are so politically charged that tribalism usually kicks in when many people hear these terms. A similar thing happens with evolution, however there is also a religious dimension there alongside the political dimension.

</comment><comment><USER14> The author spends a lot of time talking about precision and seems surprised that people think astrophysics is imprecise. Much of astrophysics is imprecise, and one result builds upon another to that imprcision propagates.

Of course the redeeming quality of astrophysics is that many of the uncertanties are easy to quantify, so at least we can say how well we know what we know.

</comment><comment> d-sc It's interesting how there is likely more people reading this from hackernews than the 217 people surveyed in the study.

</comment><comment><USER15> People have no idea what science is

<comment><USER16> Okay, what is science?

<comment><USER15> I like the definition that Carl Sagan presented on Cosmos:

> It is, so far, entirely a human invention, evolved by natural selection in > the cerebral cortex for one simple reason: it works. It is not perfect. It > can be misused. It is only a tool. But it is by far the best tool we have, > self-correcting, ongoing, applicable to everything. It has two rules. First: > there are no sacred truths; all assumptions must be critically examined; > arguments from authority are worthless. Second: whatever is inconsistent > with the facts must be discarded or revised.

<comment><USER16> Feels to me as if to you science means "Be truthful."

Am I missing something?

<comment><USER15> It is less about truth, more about the process of trying to find it.

<comment><USER16> Think we agree, just semantics at this point and me trying to simplify the expression. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> lowdown:

> The fields that were labelled as "least precise" were psychology and > evolution. Also on this end of the scale were economics, climate science, > and—wait for it—astrophysics. On the other end, forensics was perceived as > the field with the highest level of precision, followed by aerospace > engineering.

> They also note that classing medical research, seismology, and nuclear > engineering at roughly similar levels of precision is giving a bit too much > credit to seismology and medical research.

</comment><comment><USER18> (I've posted this before, but it's very relevant to this topic)

Learning to filter guesswork and scams from robust claims is easily the most important skill that the general pubic needs to learn. It's hard to progress in any other topic if you don't understand the basic methods for filtering good information from the many mistakes, misinterpretations, scams and other bad data.

Democracy and modern civilization itself requires at least some understanding of the scientific method. Sagan's warning in "The Demon-Haunted World"[1] was frighteningly prescient:

        I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time --
        when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all
        the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome
        technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing
        the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the
        ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority;
        when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our
        critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good
        and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition
        and darkness...

Until the public "baloney detection kit"[2] (and uses it regularly), trying to teach other topics is probably a waste of time, especially when you aren't even speaking the same language[3].

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Demon- Haunted_World](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Demon-Haunted_World)

[2] [https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/01/03/baloney- detection-k...](https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/01/03/baloney-detection- kit-carl-sagan/)

[3] [http://scienceblogs.com/clock/2007/05/31/more-than-just- resi...](http://scienceblogs.com/clock/2007/05/31/more-than-just-resistance- of-s/)

<comment><USER19> "easily the most important skill that the general pubic needs to learn" <\-- important for who, them or you?

<comment><USER20> For everyone. Witch-hunts and human sacrifices were believed to help with getting better harvests and they did not. And yet they were believed for thousands of years before we finally understood and adopted the scientific method. If you do not try to understand the causes of your problems, it becomes very hard to effectively find solutions as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> IMO the "March for Science" movement and these kinds of "People who don't vote the same as me do so because they're not as smart as me" kinds of things are starting to really annoy me.

Science is a tool/process. Not an agenda. Everyone in their own heads will choose whether or not to believe something regardless of how much SCIENCE they shout. The same people who yell SCIENCE on the internet could be the same people who turn around and claim that weight and calories are independent of each other, no matter how much that doesn't make sense.

<comment><USER22> Sure the SCIENCE crowd can be a bit much, but science has an "agenda" of finding the truth and making that knowledge useful for people.

That has clear political ramifications: climate change, pollution, GMO foods, heliocentric solar system, etc. Science may not have an agenda (ish?), but it does support/detract from others agendas.

Humanism is likely the agenda of the marchers, and their aesthetics/ethics are informed by "science".</comment></comment>


Blackberry expands BBM chat app to Android and iOS - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22529074 Good move by Blackberry.
Business wise it wont gain direct income, but will gain more users and with that the silly stock market market types will fall over themselfs to buy shares once this gets going and even though they are not making extra money, they will be gaiing share price.  So good for them :).
Old BB uses who went onto the other forms will grab this to speak with the odd old mates and it will propergate from there so will quickly gain momentum.
Intersting times and something they could of done ages ago as a charged for application and made from it instead of having to now jump in with free.
Probably do more for the share price than QNX ironicly, funny old world shares, but watch this space it is not out yet. <comment><AUTHOR> Good move by Blackberry.

Business wise it wont gain direct income, but will gain more users and with that the silly stock market market types will fall over themselves to buy shares once this gets going and even though they are not making extra money, they will be gaining share price. So good for them :).

Old BB uses who went onto the other forms will grab this to speak with the odd old mates and it will propagate from there so will quickly gain momentum.

Interesting times and something they could of done ages ago as a charged for application and made from it instead of having to now jump in with free.

Probably do more for the share price than QNX ironically, funny old world shares, but watch this space it is not out yet.</comment>


The new thermodynamics: how quantum physics is bending the rules - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/news/the-new-thermodynamics-how-quantum-physics-is-bending-the-rules-1.22937 <comment><USER2> "In classical thermodynamics, a single particle doesn't have a temperature."

This is false. A single particle can still be described by the maximum entropy probability distribution given its average energy, and that will give rise to a definition of temperature.

<comment><USER3> When I did my physics undergrad I skipped thermodynamics and went straight to statistical mechanics, so forgive me if I missed something. Ostensibly, it would seem a classical version of thermodynamics wouldn't deal with particles at all as the current model of particles(even Bohr's model) is much newer than classical thermodynamics.

<comment><USER4> Classical thermo (as I learned it in undergrad) works in terms of quantized oscillators, which actually works quite well with quantum mechanics.

<comment><USER5> Oh dear. This is a common problem. Classical thermodynamics is a theory in its own right. Statistical mechanics is used to bridge microscopic structure to thermodynamic properties.

Unfortunately, physicists don't learn thermodynamics. It's pretty much only taught to mechanical and chemical engineers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Another recent Nature article on the same theme: Controlling heat and particle currents in nanodevices by quantum observation [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41535-017-0043-6](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41535-017-0043-6)

</comment><comment><USER7> This quantum revival sounds more like a displacement of energy on the quantum level where it is simply not there during the cooling process and it reappears again afterwards. Interested to see more experimentation on this.

</comment><comment><USER8> Maxwell's Demon has a name... evaporation.</comment>


Show HN: Francisco.io – my new developer website - <AUTHOR> https://francisco.io/ <comment><USER2> If I may give some feedback:

I took a look at the [https://serverjs.io/](https://serverjs.io/) page. The only text is "server.js for Node" which literally just tells you the package name and the product it's for (which I could've guessed from the .js).

Below this, there are some features:

* 'Everything you need is loaded by default' (everything I need for what?! :P) * 'Realtime channels in a couple of lines' (okay, so it's for realtime communication - websockets? RTC? something else?) * 'Use async/await and forget Callback Hell' cool * etc..

I scroll down even more still not quite knowing what the package is for and read "Powerful server for Node.js that just works so you can focus on your awesome project". Okay ... what sort of server is it? An SMTP server? A web server? There was something about websockets earlier, so is it a websocket server?

It's not until I read through the code and see function calls to things like "get" and "post" that I guess it's _probably_ a web server.. but I'm still not entirely sure.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, that is very, very fair. I let [what I call] design to get in the way of usability :)

It is a web server AND a websocket server in its core, and I'm working hard now to try to make it extensible by plugins to be able to become a SMTP, RTC, torrent, etc. server if you want to.

For instance, I want to be able to do:

        const server = require('server');
        const { email } = server.plugins;

        server(
          email('email@example.com', ctx => {
            // ctx.data => the body/text of the email
            // ctx.files => any attached files
            // ctx.params.to => array of "to"
            // ...
          })
        );

But I am having some problems conceptually as to try to standardize the way we deal with any kind of requests since different servers will work in very different ways.

But still your feedback is totally valid, I'll fix it, thank you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I think using the word "Best" in the titles is a little odd. You may want to consider using the word "Highlighted" instead. You also might want to consider writing a few sentences summarizing who are you, rather than just four words at the top.

<comment><USER4> I second this. Writing a 2-4 sentence blurb about yourself can paint a good picture of who you are.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you both, hopefully it should be more clear now :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Just relaunched my website with quite a different look and wanted to share it here to see opinions. Feel free to criticize it (constructively please) so that I can improve it.

It has two main goals: for showing my open source in case anyone wants to donate and for future possible jobs (either full-time or freelancing). The design is a bit torn apart trying to achieve both goals at the same time, but still pretty decent IMHO. The Open Source goal is long-term while the other is short term and I don't need that one right now, so things like a CV link are ignored so far.

<comment><USER5> I think the faux window title bars take away from being able to look at the actual design underneath — they often clash.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good thing, I chose a bright color from a previous gray to add contrast. Might switch them to black as they did in StackOverflow: [https://stackoverflow.blog/2017/02/14/why-stack-overflow- red...](https://stackoverflow.blog/2017/02/14/why-stack-overflow-redesigned- the-top-navigation/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Your Async/Await article link goes to the wrong page.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, fixed. I reviewed that all links worked and that there are no typos, but missed reviewing that the links point to the _right_ address.</comment></comment>


One-Day Project: ctxt.us - url shortener with context - <AUTHOR> http://ctxt.us

<comment><AUTHOR> I know, just what the world needs, another URL shortener. Still, I was tired of being confronted with links on twitter like: "Coolest thing ever - <http://short.url/12345>. So in order to add a little context to my links, I created my own shortener. Give it a shot and let me know what you think.

<comment><USER2> Guess you didn't know about my <http://DecentURL.com> \-- which does more or less the same thing. Though that was inspired by a comment on reddit, not so much by a real need. :-)

DecentURL gives even more context -- it inserts the domain like yours, but also grabs the page <title> and uses a short form of that as the link part (or you can type in your own, shorter one).

<comment><USER3> While both show some context, DecentURL is not a shortener. For example, I took the URL of this comments thread and stuck in in both yours and ctxt.us:

Original - <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=731637>

DecentURL.com - [http://news.ycombinator.decenturl.com/hacker-news-one-day- pr...](http://news.ycombinator.decenturl.com/hacker-news-one-day-project)

ctxt.us - <http://ctxt.us/news.ycom/A>

In fact, yours lengthened the URL quite a bit. Not that DecentURL is not without its application, but your claim that it is the same as ctxt.us is not really valid. I quite enjoy the fact that this is a way to have your cake (a short url) and eat it too. (actually know what the hell you're clicking on)

Props to ctxt.us.

<comment><USER2> You're right -- DecentURL is not a shortener. You can do some shortening with it, but its main goal is to make _decent_ URLs, not _tiny_ ones. So ctxt.us has it's place -- I stand corrected. :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> One-Day Project, that's kind of the trend these days! We also built a URL Shortener recently in a day, with the One Day App event. The challenge is fun, and makes you narrow your features down to something doable in a day. Good work.

</comment><comment><USER5> Great idea. Just tried it. You should consider adding metrics to it down the line, but I bet you that you might find an audience for it.

Gonna throw it on my blog to give it some cool Twitter points. :D

<comment><AUTHOR> Glad you liked it. Thanks for the shout-out on your blog / twitter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> See Also: <http://twi.bz/></comment>


San Francisco Hacker News Meetup: Nginx on 5/9 - <AUTHOR>

Hey everyone! We're throwing a laid back meetup with Nginx to get some feedback on how we use it and offer some input on what direction we'd like to see it go.
It's at a cool venue (Engine Yard) and food + drinks will be provided.
http://sfhn-nginx.eventbrite.com/
Thanks for making the community great, and thanks to everyone  helping out. :) <comment><USER2> Wish I could make this – I'm moving to SF on 5/10.

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice! Ping me when you get into town and I'll buy you a drink and we can chat. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Looking forward to connect with Nginx meetup group

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> clickable: <http://sfhn-nginx.eventbrite.com/></comment>